487
PAPERS OF MIR.ABE.AU BuoN.AP.ARTE LA:u.AR
under secret information, I will thank you to state in your paper, or if this communication should arrive after it has gone to press, in a slip to be immediately issued from your office, that I have this day con- cluded in this city a contract with the bank of Messrs. J. Lafitte & Co., for the Texian loan. I forward a duplicate of this letter per the Havre packet of the 16th February, and shall enclose this to the Texian Consul at New York, per the American l\Iinister's letter bag from London. I remain very respectfully, Your obedient servant, J. HAMILTON. No. 1970 1841 Feb. 16, [M. B. LAMAR, INDEPENDENCE?] "INTRODUC- TION" TO HIS HISTORY OF TEXAS 35
INTRODUCTION.
It is a duty which we owe to posterity, to rescue from oblivion whatever of the annals of the present age will be for their instruction. ~fany important events in the infancy of every Republic are inevitably lost: and the most splendid achievements of those who civilize and emanci- pate nations are forgotten; or, are so distorted in descending to suc- ceeding ages through the devious channel of tradition, that they lose the impress of truth, and are regarded as fabulous. The heroes who endure the perils and hardships of such wars as those waged against the aboriginal barbarism, and foreign despotism which have so long excluded the freedom of law, the refinements of civilization, & the light of the gospel from the fairest regions of America, unfortunately, are seldom accompanied in their toil by the labours of faithful historians to preserve with their pens, the renown they win with their swords. If the work of saving from extinction a certain record of the plans and operations by which "the excellent of the earth" overturn the fonl fabrics of ignorance, anarchy, and tyranny, and establish upon their ruins the foundations of free and enlightened governments, is not per- formed while the illustrious actors in these benevolent enterprizes are living to testify to the truth of what they have seen and don€, posterity can never separate fact from fiction when they are dead. Consequently, a chaotic jumble of falsehood and truth is transmitted to futurity as the early history of the Country; from which credulity will award distinguished honors to the ideal heroes of fictitious deeds; an;l skepticism withhold the meed of deserved praise from the true sage2 and warriors, whose real acts of wisdom and valour, merit immortal 1rnd grateful remembrance. In preparing this history of Texas, the author availed him- self of every source of information to which he had access: and reject- ing all traditional narrations, he has carefully collected and presented such indisputable facts as he thought worthy of preservation. His object is, to give to succeeding generations, a faithful account of the origin and revolutionary struggles of the Republic of Texas, that the children of her patriots, while they are in the full enjoy-
"Copy.
Powered by FlippingBook